Two and a half years ago, TIME magazine declared 2011 to be The Year of the Protester. From the Arab Spring or Spain’s indignados to the Occupy movement, this was undoubtedly a year of political upheaval around the world.

But 2011 was also an important year for a new global vanguard of tech-minded citizens determined to bring about political change, often in connection with national crises. Let us call these citizens, at least for the time being, freedom technologists.

Consider, for instance, the loose network of freedom technologists who spearheaded the Tunisian uprising. On 28 November 2010, after long years of struggle under one of the world’s harshest regimes, the lawyer and blogger Riadh Guerfali created the site TuniLeaks. A WikiLeaks spin-off, this site released US diplomatic cables that were highly embarrassing to Ben Ali’s autocratic regime. These leaks helped to prepare the protest ground. The trigger came through the actions of another freedom technologist, veteran activist Ali Bouazizi, who recorded on his smartphone the self-immolation of his cousin Mohamed, a street vendor. He then shared the video via Facebook, where it was picked up by journalists from Al Jazeera – barred from entering Tunisia – and broadcast to the whole nation (and the rest of the Arab world). Al Jazeera’s freedom technologists relied on blogs and social media to bypass the official restrictions and report on the fast-moving events on the ground. When the government censored Facebook, the transnational online group Anonymous launched Operation Tunisia, carrying attacks against government websites via dial-up connections provided by Tunisian citizens.

In nearby Spain, where I was doing anthropological fieldwork with internet activists when it all kicked off in May 2011, the imprint of freedom technologists on the nascent protests was also strongly in evidence. After Spain’s political class passed an unpopular digital copyright bill under US pressure in early 2011, the digital rights lawyer Carlos Sanchez Almeida and other net freedom fighters responded by creating #NoLesVotes, a new platform that urged Spanish citizens not to vote for any of the major parties. Shortly afterwards, tech-minded activists such as Gala Pin, Simona Levi, Javier Toret and others formed Democracia Real Ya, an umbrella group calling for peaceful marches across Spain on 15 May 2011 to demand ‘real democracy now’. Inspired by the occupation of Tahrir square, a small number of protesters, including the hacker collective Isaac Hacksimov, decided to set up camp at Madrid’s main square, Puerta del Sol. This action was soon replicated across Spain. As in Tunisia, tech-savvy journalists played their part in the fledgling movement. Joseba Elola, a reporter with the centre-left daily El Pais and WikiLeaks admirer, described ‘young people conscious of their civil liberties who have risen to head a protest in search of a great change’. A few months earlier, Elola had secured a place for El Pais in the global release of WikiLeaks’ US diplomatic cables following a secret meeting with Julian Assange in London ¹.

A preliminary sketch

The energy and sacrifice of ordinary young protesters is undeniable, especially in the more repressive regimes, but it would be unfair to leave freedom technologists such as Elola, Pin, Bouazizi or Guerfali out of the protest picture. The Tunisian and Spanish experiences – along with those of countries as diverse as Egypt, Iceland, the United States, Malaysia, Mexico, Turkey or Brazil – allow us to draw a first sketch of these new political actors. As my stories suggest, freedom technologists are not the naïve ‘techno-utopians’ found in a certain strand of internet punditry, poor deluded souls who believe there can be technical fixes to complex societal ills ². Most are, in fact, sophisticated people who are well aware of how difficult it is to translate technological ingenuity into lasting social gains. In other words, they are techno-pragmatists (with a healthy dose of idealism).

Whilst some freedom technologists are techies, others are non-techies – with some rare individuals being both, e.g. news reporters who are also gifted programmers. Among their ranks we find computer geeks and hackers, as well as bloggers, journalists, lawyers, politicians, artists, sociologists, even anthropologists. Many of them couldn’t write a line of code to save their lives.

Contrary to media portrayals of young ‘digital natives’ leading the protests, freedom technologists range widely in age, most of them sitting somewhere along an ample 20-50 age spectrum. Both women and men are well represented, as are people of all ethnic, racial and religious backgrounds (yet with a high proportion of secularists). As in all fields of endeavour, some seek the limelight where others are happy to remain invisible ³.

Although their outlook is global, most freedom technologists are ‘rooted cosmopolitans’ ⁴ who both for practical and emotional reasons will limit themselves to one or two national struggles, usually in their own countries of origin or residence.

We should not think of them as ‘techno-libertarians’⁵, for ideologically they are highly diverse, too, ranging from radical anarchists through left-liberals to free-market libertarians. Depending on their skills and on the causes they espouse, some will focus on information freedom, others on developing free encryption software for activists, still others on furthering individual freedoms, and so forth. What unites them is a strong anti-authoritarian streak, a profound mistrust of large governments and corporations, and the conviction that the fate of the internet and of human freedom are inextricably entwined ⁶.

When it comes to their class position, we find less diversity. Predictably, freedom technologists are mostly urban, educated, and middle-class. This explains their perennial search for bridging devices (images, slogans, narratives, apps, web platforms) that will align their techno-political goals with the hopes and aspirations of the general population. Examples of this quest include the broad-appeal narrative created around the Tunisian self-immolation video, the Spanish chant ‘We are not commodities in the hands of politicians and bankers’, or the global Occupy slogan ‘We are the 99%’.

New blog series

But perhaps I am giving freedom technologists too much credit. What exactly have they contributed to the new protest movements? With what consequences, if any, for real political change? What can we expect from them in future global and national crises? More importantly, what can the rest of us do to help? These are precisely the questions I will be asking in a new series of 42 blog posts over at my research blog, media/anthropology. This public scholarship marathon will run for a year, each post symbolically standing for one kilometre.

To reach the finishing line I will require a great amount of stamina, as well as a steady supply of feedback from readers via the blog, email, or some other channel. Please feel free to subscribe to the blog or to follow me on Twitter for regular updates on the series.

UPDATE: Further posts in this series can be found here.

Notes

Yesterday, therefore, marked a major departure from this stance, perhaps for the first time ever. On Thursday, March 20, 2008, the PRC government acknowledged that Tibetan protest is widespread. That is, it is not just confined to Lhasa or to monks, but is spread throughout Tibetan areas of China and is being committed by Tibetans from all backgrounds—by monks, laypeople, and students, and by men and women, young and old.

Why does this matter?

As I see it, Chinese acknowledgement that there is widespread Tibetan dissent—or, at a minimum, widespread adherence to the Dalai Lama—signifies a major departure from their longstanding policy of publicly diminishing the importance, depth, and breadth of any anti-Chinese sentiment in Tibet. Knowing about it privately as they have for decades is one thing, but to acknowledge it publicly signals a turning point. However, turning to what I am not certain: to further castigating the Dalai Lama for (supposedly) inciting the protests? To cracking down harder on the protesters? Or perhaps to some sort of more reasoned responsiveness? A resuming of talks with the Dalai Lama? An independent or U.N. inquiry into the situation? I simply don’t know.

Let me share what I do know with you. My best sources of information have been through other scholars and my Tibetan friends, specifically, through anonymous reports from inside Tibet (that at least one of my colleagues outside Tibet has deemed reliable and circulates among fellow scholars). Who writes these reports, I don’t know. How they get them out, I don’t know. Who they are sent to, and who translates them from Chinese into English, I don’t know. What do the reports say? This:

1. Protests began on March 6 in eastern Tibet, not on March 10, the Tibetan Uprising Day;

2. Protesters have included monks and “ordinary” laypeople from the beginning;

3. Protest cries and signs have included the following:
   a. Han Chinese Out of Tibet
   b. Tibet Independence
   c. Free Tibet
   d. Long Life to the Dalai Lama
   e. Hold Dialogue with the Dalai Lama
   f. Allow Tibet to Enjoy High Degree of Autonomy;

4. Protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful (or at least peaceful until police or army engagement);

5. Protests have taken place in the Tibet Autonomous Region, in Tibetan areas of Gansu, Qinghai, and Sichuan, as well as in the Chinese cities of Beijing, Chengdu, and Lanzhou;

6. Protests have ranged in size from small groups to over 10,000 people;

7. Mass arrests have taken place. Reports suggest in the thousands;

8. Many people have been killed. No tally is given other than “many;”

9. Ganden, Sera, and Drepung Monasteries in the Lhasa area have had water and food cut off to them since March 10-11;

10. In many places, Tibetans have taken down the Chinese state flag and replaced it with the Tibetan flag or a Buddhist flag; and,

11. There has been a massive influx of Chinese military forces into Tibetan areas throughout the country.

If you’ve been following the protests online, the above goes well beyond anything you’ve probably read. Given what I know about Tibet and how information circulates in and out of Tibet under Chinese rule, I have no good reason to question the reports’ veracity. If anything, I fear that what we don’t know is more (and worse) than what we do know.

As for the Dalai Lama, the former head of the Tibetan state and current India-based head of the exile Tibetan community and government, he has lashed out at Chinese suggestions that he is behind the protests and that he is truly seeking independence rather than meaningful autonomy for Tibet. He has also accused China of being guilty of “cultural genocide” in Tibet, and has gone so far as to say that he will resign his exile political post if Tibetans reject his nonviolent struggle in favor of violence.

Lets be clear here: although they are a much romanticized group, Tibetans are not genetically nonviolent. They are a people with a complex, not monolithic society, religion, and history. Like people just about everywhere, Tibetans have long been fluent in both nonviolent and violent practices and philosophies.

Thus, although Tibetans may try to adhere to the Dalai Lama’s Middle-Way Approach, and to practice nonviolence over violence (as the most moral choice), or desire autonomy over independence (as the most practical option), ordinary Tibetans are not the Dalai Lama. They are not trained since a young age in Buddhist philosophy, meditation, and statecraft. They are not reincarnations of Chenrezig, the embodiment of wisdom and compassion. Tibetans are regular people trying to make their way through (this) life.

And right now, today, at this moment, Tibetans inside Tibet are raising their voices, and some their arms, against Chinese rule. They’re angry and sad and frustrated and they’re taking action in ways that we haven’t seen since the 1950s. Death of the resistance?

The resistance is dead! Long live the resistance!